At my wits' end I
searched the traces of old tales,
but nowhere is there
any match for this—a child
who turns against her parent
- Meaning
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At my wits' end I searched the traces of the old tales, but nowhere is there a match for this: a child who turns against her parent.
- Commentary
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Part One: Hotaru
The summer rains were heavier than usual, and with no break in the weather and nothing to do, the ladies of the Rokujo estate spent their days over pictures and tales. To Tamakazura, brought up in the provinces, it was all especially new, and she copied and read from morning to night, thinking that nowhere among the tales was there anyone whose life had been like her own. The passage in the Tale of Sumiyoshi where the heroine barely escapes the Chief Accountant put her in mind of the odious Audit Officer. Genji, coming upon it all, laughed that women were born to be deceived; but then he began to speak in earnest of what tales are worth, saying that the Chronicles of Japan give only one side, and that it is in tales that the full and reasoned account of things is to be found—the famous discourse on fiction. At the end he asked whether any old tale held the story of an honest fool like himself, and said that no lady in any tale was ever as cold as she; and drawing close he made this poem.
"At my wits' end" is being unable to bear one's feelings. "The traces of old tales" are precedents set down in earlier fiction. "A child who turns against her parent" is Tamakazura, who will not yield to the suit of the man who stands as her father. That he adds a word about how sternly the Buddha's teaching condemns unfilial conduct makes it a piece of high-handed reasoning, using the standing of a foster father as a lever for love. Having just praised the tales for containing everything, he now produces his own case as something the tales do not contain—which is at once the cleverness of the scene and the chill in it. She would not raise her face, and he stroked her hair and reproached her bitterly.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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